The present invention relates to the medical treatment of obesity in humans, and more particularly to apparatus and methods for curbing the appetite of persons being treated for obesity.
Extreme obesity is a major illness in the United States and other countries. Its complications include hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, venous disease, multiple orthopedic problems and pulmonary insufficiency with markedly decreased life expectancy. Medical management including dietary, psychotherapy, medications and behavioral modification techniques have yielded extremely poor results in multiple trials. Several surgical techniques have been tried which have bypassed the absorptive surface of the small intestine or have been aimed at reducing the stomach size by either partition or bypass. These procedures have been proven both hazardous to perform in morbidly obese patients and have been fraught with numerous life-threatening postoperative complications. Moreover such operative procedures are often difficult to reverse.
Non-surgical approaches for the treatment of obesity include voluntary dieting which is often unsuccessful since most persons do not possess sufficient willpower to limit the intake of food. Other approaches include the use of stomach fillers such as methyl cellulose, often taken in the form of tablets. The methyl cellulose expands in the stomach leaving the person with a filled-up feeling. Also, inflatable bag and tube combinations have been proposed wherein the bag is swallowed into the stomach and the tube attached thereto is used to periodically inflate the bag, particulary just prior to mealtime or during the meal. Once the person has eaten, the bag can be deflated all at once, or it can be deflated gradually over a period of a few hours so as to simulate the condition of digestion occurring and the gradual reduction of stomach contents.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,315 granted Jan. 9, 1979 discloses such an inflatable bag and tube combination. The tubing remains attached to the bag and inside the esophagus of the person being treated. These tubes are often the cause of erosions and ulcerations of the esophagus. This patent also discloses a gastrotomy method wherein the permanently attached tube used to distend the stomach bag extends through an opening in the stomach wall as well as an opening in the abdomen.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,246,893 granted Jan. 27, 1981 discloses an inflatable bag and tube combination which is surgically positioned outside and adjacent to the stomach. Upon inflation of the bag the upper abdomen is distended and the stomach compressed to thereby produce a sense of satiety which reduces the persons's desire to ingest food.
Hence, reducing the size of the gastric compartment has been shown to induce weight loss in a significant percentage of people, and the present invention is aimed at a device which nonoperatively reduces the size of the gastric compartment and which is easily removed.